Nice Overtake ( Not )

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

To partially answer that question of where, most commerial vehicles do not have rear view mirrors and if the following vehicle is tailgating it is not visible to the driver. A motorbike or car checks behind him signals and uses his acceleration to overtake unaware that the vehicle in front doesn't know he is there.If the overtaking vehicle moved out and ensured,or at least gave the other slower commercial driver a chance to see him before commencing the overtake one part of the problem is eleviated.
Unfortunately this happens time and time again and the commercial driver gets the blame.
With regard to the overtaking by HGV's a lot is to do with engine power and gearing,
dropping a gear to stay behind a slower vehicle can seriously affect the fuel consumtion and when you only do 10mpg that comes to a lot of money at the end of the day when it is over £5 per gallon.Mathematics dictate that this can add 20% to your fuel bill for the day.On a 400mile day that equates to £40 per day. VOSA in its wisdom along with planners set the speed limits when we have trucks that are perfectly capable of well in excess of 70mph but not allowed to use it to overtake

yes true but my point with hgv's is that when i am in the over taking lane
passing several vehicles and coming up to over take said hgv and in plain sight and maybe 20m away from the rear of the hgv he/she then puts indicator on and pulls out at the same time causeing me to have to brake so as not to go in to the back of the hgv,and this happen all most every time i go on a dual carrageway wether it be night or day or car or bike,and has nothing to do with mpg or getting some where faster and more to do with being a bully on the road and to lazy to give way to other drivers and braking every rule in the highway code posible and was not how i was trained to drive a hgv

I normally try to read the 'body language ' of trucks if there are two or three running together - one is likely to want to pull out and overtake another - so before that happens I will pull into lane 3 - gives them plenty of room , and doesn't **** me off for being stuck behind one at 56 mph .... its all about forward obs and anticipation, something the rider in the OP's post clearly failed to do

Originally Posted by victor_meldrew

I normally try to read the 'body language ' of trucks if there are two or three running together - one is likely to want to pull out and overtake another - so before that happens I will pull into lane 3 - gives them plenty of room , and doesn't **** me off for being stuck behind one at 56 mph .... its all about forward obs and anticipation, something the rider in the OP's post clearly failed to do

A lot of the time there isn't a lane 3. Try travelling up the A1M north of Sandy for a few miles during the day, it's a bloody nightmare with the 56mph Racing Club blocking both lanes. Some days you can barely overtake anything until you get to the 3 and 4 lane section approaching Peterboghorror, then just after the A47 junction it all goes back to 2 lanes again for miles and miles.

The A1M used to be my choice of road to go north, but the ignorance of some HGV drivers has forced me to use the M1 recently

A couple of people saying use lane 3.

Aside from what Lozzo says about dual carriageways. Do we not recognise that elephant racing, blocking lanes 1 and 2, then causes the blockage of lane 3 on anything but the quietest of 3 lane motorways? Just like middle lane lane hoggers, it effectively removes a lane of width from the road, by making it unusable for faster traffic. Truck in lane 1 and lane 2 side by side for several minutes (and hence several miles) means there is only one lane for all the rest of the traffic to filter past.

If middle lane hoggers and elephant racers could be eliminated, the country could have saved millions on the sections of motorway that have been widened to 4 lanes. We actually don't have enough traffic to warrant 4 lanes most of the time, the 3 lanes get congested because they don't get used properly.

The M25 and southern sections of the M1, M6 in particular run so close to capacity almost 7 days a week, that one accident on a Sunday afternoon can cause a major tail-back.

I can only assume people saying 'use lane 3' live in very quiet parts of the country, or rarely drive the motorways when busy. I also guess a lot of people who drive motorways, drive the same route every day at the same time, then park up and go to work. They'll have a different view to those of us for whom driving all the different motorways at all times of day, IS going to work.

i agree that inconsiderate overtaking is a problem in whatever fashion or mode of transport but expecting to do a journey at the max permitted speed in todays world is very unrealistic resulting in all the ropey silly and sometimes unecessary overtakes we see.
I put it down to the rat race lifestyle that I am fortunate to be excluded from most of the time thankfully.

[mikerj]

Ralph is spot on in his arguments, there simply isn't an excuse for elephant racing. If your truck is sufficiently quicker that the one in front is going to delay you then you should be able to overtake in a reasonable time and distance. If you have to hold up other traffic for several minutes then the overtake was clearly not justified and won't save any time.

As for vehicles "coming out of nowhere", this is the classic defence of the unobservant.

Originally Posted by Lozzo

A lot of the time there isn't a lane 3. Try travelling up the A1M north of Sandy for a few miles during the day, it's a bloody nightmare with the 56mph Racing Club blocking both lanes. Some days you can barely overtake anything until you get to the 3 and 4 lane section approaching Peterboghorror, then just after the A47 junction it all goes back to 2 lanes again for miles and miles.

The A1M used to be my choice of road to go north, but the ignorance of some HGV drivers has forced me to use the M1 recently

Wouldn't the best answer be to restrict HGV's the inside lane only ? just a thought.

[stormingjoe]

when overtaking a slightly slower vehicle as HGV's and other large vehicles do, the slower one is supposed to reduce speed a little more to allow them to pass quicker, reducing delay to other road users, instead of spending 10 miles trying to pass. These time trials don't appear to work as they are mostly ignored by HGVs', another consideration in speed reduced zone( roadworks etc) tacho and speedo is calibrated to a higher accuracy than cars, when doing 50 many trucks are showing 45 or a little less!

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by suzukigt380paul

yes true but my point with hgv's is that when i am in the over taking lane
passing several vehicles and coming up to over take said hgv and in plain sight and maybe 20m away from the rear of the hgv he/she then puts indicator on and pulls out at the same time causeing me to have to brake so as not to go in to the back of the hgv,and this happen all most every time i go on a dual carrageway wether it be night or day or car or bike,and has nothing to do with mpg or getting some where faster and more to do with being a bully on the road and to lazy to give way to other drivers and braking every rule in the highway code posible and was not how i was trained to drive a hgv

The consequence for the truck driver if they don't pull out when they can is that they have to slow 40+ tons down losing all the valuable momentum they have just gathered, which it turn will then result in their overtake (if they get another chance) taking that much longer. If you can clearly see a lorry catching another why wait for their indicator to come on before easing off or braking. A little anticipation on your side might actually make things run a whole lot smoother. That's how I was trained to drive.

Whilst on the subject of Highway code does it not say you shouldn't overtake if it will cause another vehicle to alter course or speed. Does that not work both ways? What makes your overtake on them more important than their overtake on the other lorry?

Originally Posted by Stuuk1

The op has a valid post, why ruin it...

+1

This debate is unedifying, stupid point scoring for the sake of being clever.

I think everyone knows where 'nowhere' is. It means that you checked your mirror a few seconds before and there was nothing there. In my admittedly limited experience of criminal law, it does not make people unreliable witnesses as magistrates courts do understand.

I believe that the OP makes an excellent point. And as Stuuk1 says - why ruin it?